It was about time! Finally, in its 22nd year of existence, the biggest metal festival in the world will welcome the Prince of Darkness, one of the founders of the music we have all come to love: Ozzy Osbourne will headline Wacken Open Air 2011!
Ozzy's performance at Wacken will be his only German festival show in 2011. The metal opera Avantasia take it even further and will make their performance at Wacken Open Air their only show in 2011 worldwide! Witnessing Tobias Sammet (Edguy) and his myriad of guests in front of tens of thousands of fans under the open sky certainly isn't your everyday concert experience.
And of course there's also American power metallers Iced Earth who will be performing for the very last time with legendary singer Matt Barlow.

But these three acts aren't the only ones with exclusive performances: NWOBHM legends Judas Priest, who are currently on their last world tour ever, TNBM front-runners Mayhem and Australian hard rockers Airbourne will also perform their only German festival shows at Wacken Open Air, and for Trivium it will even be their only festival show on European soil in 2011.

But even if you don't care for either of these bands, Wacken once again offers a wide array of metal styles for almost everyone, like power metal (e.g. Blind Guardian), extreme power/melodeath metal (e.g. Children Of Bodom), thrash metal (e.g. Kreator), death metal (e.g. Kataklysm), rock'n'roll (e.g. Motörhead), glam metal (e.g. Crashdïet), j-rock (Dir En Grey), folk metal (e.g. Moonsorrow), stoner (Kyuss Lives!) and then some. For a complete listing of all 120+ bands, filled to the brim with big names of the scene, you'll only have to scroll down.

Wacken Open Air takes place in - surprise! - Wacken in Northern Germany, a small village with merely 2,000 inhabitants on 361 days of the year. The town is located 10 km north of Itzehoe and 50 km northwest of Hamburg. There will be shuttle buses from the festival site to the train station in Itzehoe as well as to the airports in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck. For more info on getting there and away check the festival page here.

The festival is officially sold out since February, but some tour operators (e.g. Metal Train for Germany, Bock Tours for the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Argon Events for the UK) still have some coach trip/festival ticket packages in store. More tour operators can be found here.

Another way to acquire your ticket would be the ticket exchange in the official forum which aims for eliminating the black marketing going on on eBay and other auctioning sites, and reducing the risk of acquiring fake tickets. In this exchange the Wacken staff supervises the ticket prices and acts as trust which means that the seller sends the ticket(s) to the staff who verifies the authenticity of the ticket(s) and reports it to the buyer. After the buyer has transferred the money to the seller, the Wacken staff will pass on the ticket(s) to the buyer. More information on this model can be found here (in English) and here (in German).

What? Has the world gone mad? Only six names announced (of which five are staple festival bands) and already that many tickets sold?

That's Wacken to you.

I wouldn't consider ST as a staple festival band btw.

They have been doing quite a few festivals the last couple of years. First as ST, this year as Infectious Grooves (they played a couple of ST songs)

Just checked their recent events and yeah, you are kinda right. Most of those festivals are quite mainstream-oriented though (Exit Festival, Download, Le Rock Dans Tous, Les Eurockéennes, Rock for People) and they don't play that often in Germany either, so that's why I've probably perceived it differently. So for me they'd be a good reason to go Wacken again.

Just checked their recent events and yeah, you are kinda right. Most of those festivals are quite mainstream-oriented though (Exit Festival, Download, Le Rock Dans Tous, Les Eurockéennes, Rock for People) and they don't play that often in Germany either, so that's why I've probably perceived it differently. So for me they'd be a good reason to go Wacken again.

You consider Download more mainstream oriented than Wacken? I'd say they're both as mainstream oriented.

Just checked their recent events and yeah, you are kinda right. Most of those festivals are quite mainstream-oriented though (Exit Festival, Download, Le Rock Dans Tous, Les Eurockéennes, Rock for People) and they don't play that often in Germany either, so that's why I've probably perceived it differently. So for me they'd be a good reason to go Wacken again.

You consider Download more mainstream oriented than Wacken? I'd say they're both as mainstream oriented.

Marcel, believe it or not, there's more to a festival than just the music. And in that regard there is nothing like Wacken. The Cult that has grown around it, the faithful fans, the village and it's people. Even most bands acknowledge the special place that Wacken has in the scene.

And your trolling won't change things either. The only thing you accomplish here, besides alienating people who actually like the festival is to establish yourself as superior to other people which is what most of us stopped doing at the age of 16.

Marcel, believe it or not, there's more to a festival than just the music. And in that regard there is nothing like Wacken. The Cult that has grown around it, the faithful fans, the village and it's people. Even most bands acknowledge the special place that Wacken has in the scene.

And your trolling won't change things either. The only thing you accomplish here, besides alienating people who actually like the festival is to establish yourself as superior to other people which is what most of us stopped doing at the age of 16.

Although I still feel superior to folk metal fans

great rant, awesome stuff haha. MARCEL MUST DIE IN THE NAME OF METAL!! ig i hagezsch

Airbourne are a great live band espeically for festivals. No bullshit just music and and some antics. manowar live are horrendous. Half the set is lame assed speeches about how true they and their fans are.

What? Has the world gone mad? Only six names announced (of which five are staple festival bands) and already that many tickets sold?

Hell yeah. Guilty as charged.
Every time, the day after wacken at midnight i am spamming the F5 button for metaltix to finally co-operate to order tickets. More a tradition then anything else. Wacken i go for the festival, the line-up really is a secondairy thing.
It was 5 hours btw. Last year it was 10 or so.
Still though, there are like 3 artists in the world that can pull that off, nevermind festivals.